


For Fashion's Sake

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Series: It's Fashion, Darling! [4]
Category: Dong Bang Shin Ki
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, M/M, Sequel, it's fashion darling, shamelessly extracting the michael kors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2012-09-22
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:56:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Designer Shim is back on TV for <i>All Stars Stitched Up</i>. Changmin sees the competition as the chance for a bit of peace and quiet away from Yunho, but nothing ever works out as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Fashion's Sake

**Author's Note:**

> Six related ficlets, and a sequel of sorts to [Perfect Fit](http://archiveofourown.org/works/481720).

**i. The Invitation**

The invitation arrives the old-fashioned way, by letter in an envelope emblazoned with the _Stitched Up_ logo.

As is their habit, Yunho brings the post to Changmin in bed before he potters off, the dogs trailing after him, to prepare Changmin’s morning coffee.

Ever since he started working for Versace, Changmin has been very particular about his coffee. Even though he’d mostly worked from the home he and Yunho share in Seoul, he’d often had to travel to Milan to consult with colleagues, to source materials, to attend fashion weeks and generally to mingle and show his face as and when the house required.

His extended time in Italy had developed his taste for proper Italian coffee, served at the correct hour of the day—no cappuccino after breakfast time, please—and he’d spent an obscene amount of money on a proper Italian coffee machine and an even more ridiculous sum shipping it back to Korea and having it installed. After a few weeks of training and a couple of accidents and new plaster on the ceiling, Yunho got the hang of making coffee the exact way Changmin likes it.

With the delicious scent of roasted beans drifting through their sunny apartment, and with the gentle sputter of the machine a counterpoint to Yunho’s foolish babbling at their dogs Lagerfeld and Pucci, Changmin relaxes back against the heaped pillows and opens the letter.

 _Dear Designer Shim_ , it says. _We would just love for you to join us as part of the all new_ All Stars Stitched Up _! This will be the first in an occasional series whereby previous contestants from the top five (or lower, if they were particularly contentious, aggressive, or bitchy) will be gathered together to take part in an intensive ten-week challenge that’ll be filmed over the course of three weeks. The top three finalists will battle it out for a prize so fabulous we haven’t decided what it’ll be yet, but it’ll be so fabulous Zhou Mi won’t have the vocabulary to describe it, but here’s what we’ve got on offer for now..._

Changmin reads the rest of the letter then touches it to his lips, considering the invitation. The timing is ideal. It’s still a few months before he can start working for Chanel, who bought out his contract with Versace. Technically he can’t sell any of his designs until the original term of contract ends, and he’s been bumming around offering constructive criticism on Yunho’s pieces for the Gwangju Skank and Posh Boy lines. Although Yunho seems very happy to receive this valuable input, Changmin has yet to see any of his advice applied to the garments. In fact, since Changmin has had to stop working, Yunho’s production has significantly tailed off as they spend a good part of the day in bed without any attention to clothes and with only a minor interest in lengths of leather and silk.

Quite aside from that, the ban on freelancing means that technically he can’t win _All Stars Stitched Up_ , since part of the prize is to sell a concise collection through gangnamstyle.com, and Changmin doesn’t like the idea that he won’t be a winner.

The rattle of bone china heralds Yunho’s triumphant procession with the cup of coffee. Lagerfeld trots along in his wake, little pink tongue lolling out in comical mimicry of his master. Changmin sits up in bed and hands Yunho the invitation in exchange for the coffee. “Tell me, what’s the point in doing this?”

Yunho skims the letter. “Fun?”

“Oh, that.” Changmin rolls his eyes and takes a sip of the coffee. It’s strong and sweet and has just a hint of cardamom, which isn’t very Italian but it tastes good all the same. “Right. Because I enjoyed it so much last time.”

“You did.” Yunho places the letter on the nightstand then sits on the side of the bed, picks up Lagerfeld, and cuddles the pug until it’s a dribbling, squirming ball of canine adoration. “You had a great time. Especially after Sabine was kicked out and I was reinstated. You _loved_ it then.”

Changmin puts down his coffee and folds his arms. “That was different. It had nothing to do with fashion.”

“It did.” Yunho drops a kiss onto Lagerfeld’s head and shoots Changmin a mock-offended look. “Have you forgotten the night I had you on that PVC? You said it was a fabric only slappers and hookers would ever use, and I totally managed to change your mind.”

“Not really.” Changmin sniffs. He picks dog hair from the duvet. “I still think it’s for slappers and hookers. I also happen to think that role play is an essential part of a loving relationship.”

Yunho laughs and sprawls back on the bed, holding Lagerfeld up in the air. The pug yips and scrabbles excitedly, little paws kicking open Yunho’s towelling bathrobe and scratching his bare chest.

“Put that disgusting cur down,” Changmin snaps. No one is allowed to scratch Yunho’s chest like that. It’s a pleasure Changmin reserves entirely for himself. Maybe it’s a bit sad to be jealous of his own pet, but some things are off-limits, and Yunho’s chest is all for him.

“Aww Feldie, Changminnie didn’t mean it, Changminnie loves puppies really,” Yunho baby-talks to the pug, cuddling the animal closer. Lagerfeld yaps and licks Yunho’s face.

Changmin tries not to melt at how adorable they both look. “I wonder why they asked me and not you.”

“Maybe they liked your design aesthetic more.” Sitting up again, Yunho sets Lagerfeld on the polished wooden floorboards. The pug turns in a circle, scratches at his hindquarters, then wanders off into the living room.

The thought pleases Changmin. “Yes, that must be it.”

Yunho leans back and adjusts his gaping bathrobe. “Milhye is going to be on the show. Did they tell you that in the letter? And I had an email from Spoon just yesterday. He’ll be there, too.”

“Oh?” Changmin narrows his eyes as he evaluates this news. It won’t be a problem. He’s beaten both of them before and he can do it again. “I wonder who else has signed up for it.”

“You’re the fan of the show, not me. There’s probably a forum or something online that’s taking odds on it.” Yunho stops fiddling with the belt of his bathrobe as Pucci comes nosing into the bedroom. “Pucci, Pucci, come to daddy!”

Changmin wrinkles his nose as Yunho makes a fuss of the gigantic golden-brown Leonberger. “Must you encourage him? I don’t like it when the animals climb all over the bed. Especially Pucci. He’s huge and he moults. Look, his hair is everywhere after only thirty seconds. It’s gross. Lagerfeld is just as bad, he comes in here with his dirty paws and deliberately treads all over my favourite bed linen, and every time I scold them, they give me this woebegone look and I know it’s because you’re too soft with them.”

Yunho gazes at him, eyes all wide and sad. “You’re so mean to the puppies.”

“Jung, they are not puppies. Pucci is four years old.”

“Don’t listen to him, Pucci-pup! Changminnie is ageist.”

Suddenly the opportunity to take part in _All Stars Stitched Up_ seems like a really good idea. It seems like an even better idea when Pucci gives Yunho a sloppy doggy kiss and leaps up onto the bed, shifting it sideways by a good five centimetres. He wags his huge, fluffy tail, knocking over Changmin’s coffee at the same time. The coffee splashes across Changmin’s favourite cream and blue silk Persian rug. The cup shatters. Startled by the noise, Pucci jumps and starts barking.

Lagerfeld comes tearing in from the living room, yapping, and skids on the spilt coffee. He goes rolling across the floor, yelping piteously, and clunks into the full-length bevelled mirror. Though the mirror wobbles, it stays upright—but a succession of Changmin’s scarves tumble from their carefully draped perch on the frame and fall on top of Lagerfeld, who whines and fights off the attack until the swathes of delicate fabrics are rendered into rags and the more robust knits are covered in dog drool. 

Yunho falls off the bed laughing.

Changmin clutches his head. “Oh, for fu—”

“For _fashion’s_ sake, Changminnie!” Yunho scrambles up and kisses his nose.

“For fashion’s sake,” Changmin repeats slowly. That sounds like a catchphrase. A good catchphrase—no, a great one. Much better than the one he’d devised for season five, the one that Cho Kyuhyun has used ever since.

“For fashion’s sake!” Changmin bounces out of bed, filled with buoyant enthusiasm. “I’ll do it. I’ll go on _All Stars Stitched Up_ and I’ll win it!”

“Except for the bit where you can’t win it because of your contract battle,” Yunho reminds him, picking up the broken pieces of the cup. “But you can come second!”

“I hate coming second,” Changmin grumbles.

“I know,” Yunho says with a sigh. “But sometimes I just can’t control myself.”

Changmin stares at his weird boyfriend and decides that the separation imposed by the TV show can only be a good thing.

* * *

**ii. Bedding Down**

This time when Changmin turns up at the apartment-hotel, he doesn’t care whether he’s the first or the last designer to arrive. He’s full of confidence, most of which comes from the memory of Yunho fucking him last night and gasping, “You’re a winner, you’re a winner, Shim Changmin!” which was all kinds of idiotic, and Changmin had been put off his stroke at one point because he was laughing so hard. Nevertheless, Yunho’s brand of motivational thinking seems to have worked, because Changmin strides into the boys’ apartment with a big smile on his face and a bag of pineapple lumps in his hand.

By late evening, the pineapple lumps have been eaten and all the designers are lounging around the boys’ kitchen/living area. Changmin sits on the sofa, Spoon on one side and Milhye on the other, and sizes up the rest of the competition under the guise of friendly conversation and a few glasses of champagne. There’s Han Geng from season four, a quiet Chinese who looks permanently haunted and occasionally blurts out disjointed Korean sentences; an American guy, Chip, of the ChipSkip&Hank urban collective from season three, who grins a lot and says ‘y’all’ every time he opens his mouth, and—to Changmin’s great displeasure—Siwon from season seven.

Changmin had missed a number of episodes from season seven due to work commitments in Milan, and although Yunho had recorded the shows for him, somehow Changmin had managed to delete them and hadn’t had time to catch up with the episodes illegally online. The fact that Siwon—or Chiffonie Wonnie, as he’d become known—made it through to the final four is something that Changmin finds inconceivable. Top male models know nothing about fashion. They _wear_ clothes, they don’t design them; and yet Siwon has managed to start a new career making crappy sportswear.

Alongside Milhye, the girls are: Go Ara from season one, who’s still making ugly LBDs from felt and jersey; Victoria from season six, a specialist in menswear who takes all measurements by groping her clients rather than using a tape measure; Amber from season seven, who looks like a tomboy but makes beautiful, ultra-feminine gowns; and finally, Heechul from season two, who now goes by the name of Lady HeeHee and declares that art transcends gender and for the duration of the show he’s going to be a woman, so respect it, bitches.

Changmin knows he can out-design and out-sew everyone in the room. With his almost encyclopaedic knowledge of _Stitched Up_ , he tries to work out who would come second to him—in other words, who’s going to win just because he can’t. He refuses to countenance the idea that Chiffonie Wonnie might do well, so he decides that either Spoon or Milhye would make acceptable replacement winners.

The evening ends when the champagne runs out, and the girls return to their apartment and the guys meander around getting ready for bed. Changmin shares a room with Spoon and Han Geng. Spoon keeps Changmin awake half the night asking for graphic details of his love life and squealing with indignation when Changmin refuses to say anything, especially regarding the size of Yunho’s dick.

They’re woken at four o’clock in the morning by Zhou Mi, who instructs them not to get changed out of their nightwear and also to bring a sheet from their bed with them to the workroom. He has to deliver this instruction several times to Siwon, who must be very tired because Zhou Mi also needs to stand really close and help him with the bed sheet. They leave the apartment-hotel and traipse through downtown Seoul just as dawn is breaking. There’s a chill in the air, the suggestion of a spring breeze, and Changmin breathes in the cool, complex scent of the city and feels glad that he agreed to this contest.

Entering the workroom is like greeting an old acquaintance, one that you can’t quite remember if you liked or not. The designers find their allotted benches and investigate the sewing room, exchanging stories about their experiences on the main show. The cameraman trails after them. Changmin notices a couple of CCTV-type cameras mounted in the workroom. He’s glad that season five was filmed so cheaply, otherwise the after-hours activities he and Yunho engaged in would have been if not impossible then at the very least exhibitionist.

“Designers,” Zhou Mi drawls, placing his hands in a reverse steeple and looking around the room, “it’s your first challenge—are you excited? I’m excited. Just see how excited I am, I can barely contain myself. Your first challenge is to create a look from your bed sheet and your nightwear. Dyes and notions are provided, and over here we have a charming selection of discarded items from Jaejoong’s wardrobe for you to wear in place of your sleeping garments. You have until two o’clock this afternoon, and then we’ll be going directly to the runway. So just a suggestion—”

Changmin interrupts. “Do we have to use _all_ of our nightwear?”

Zhou Mi scans him up and down. “A significant part of your nightwear should form part of the look. It’s entirely up to you what you choose. Just a suggestion—use the t-shirt. It has more potential than your boxer-briefs. Just a suggestion, take it or leave it!”

“Right. Thanks.” Now Changmin wishes he’d packed the gorgeous midnight blue silk-satin pyjamas Yunho had given him especially to wear on the show. He’d thought they were too nice to wear in public, as it were, so he’s wearing a Gwangju Skank t-shirt custom-made for him—on the front in graffiti-style writing it says _Gwangju Skank loves his Posh Boy_ —and his boxer-briefs are actually Yunho’s, taken deliberately and not by accident.

He is not giving up Yunho’s underwear in the name of fashion. He’ll have to rely on the bed sheet and the Gwangju Skank t-shirt.

Go Ara and Victoria fight over Jaejoong’s cast-off silver lamé jumpsuit. Spoon has to rip the seams of a number of Jaejoong’s paisley shirts and pin them into a kind of toga, muttering all the while about skinny TV show hosts and how unhealthy it is to be a size two. Siwon announces that he’s just going to wear his tiny jockey shorts because God gave him his amazing body with its ripped abs and sexy chest and it would be a sin to cover it up. Milhye offers Chip several thousand won to swap workbenches so she can stare at Siwon.

Changmin sneers at Siwon’s pathetic posing and roots through the box of Jaejoong’s unwanted clothing, finally pulling out a purple PVC jacket. It’s the only thing that’s remotely suitable for him to wear, but still he hesitates, because it’s PVC, and as he told Yunho only the other day, PVC is a fabric for slappers and hookers. Changmin puts on the jacket, a blush climbing to his face as he thinks about the last time he pretended to be a hooker for Yunho.

“Hey girlfriend, you look like you escaped from a boyband!” Spoon shrieks across the room.

Changmin hunches down in the jacket, which squeaks and creaks, reminding him of how Yunho had coaxed him into wearing a short, tight PVC skirt that laced up the back and a pair of thigh-high boots and the silk charmeuse vest from season five. “Structure and flow,” Yunho had said, sliding greedy hands all over Changmin’s chest and down over his thighs. “You’re so architectural, baby. How much do you charge? I want your mouth, I want your ass, I want your everything.”

Ignoring the other designers and trying to stifle unwanted arousal, Changmin picks up his sketchbook and gets to work. He studies the note giving his model’s measurements, makes a few calculations, then cuts the bed sheet into two unequal pieces. He dyes the Gwangju Skank t-shirt and one piece of the sheet black, and the other piece he dyes a deep, intense violet.

Once the fabric is dry, he cuts the neck of the t-shirt right down into a wide, deep vee. The black cotton of the bed sheet he tailors into a pair of cigarette pants, and from the violet cloth he makes a short jacket with splits along the side and back seams to create movement.

Zhou Mi’s critique and the model fitting both go well. Changmin glances at the clock on the wall of the workroom. He still has a lot to do, and he barely registers any of the other designers or their looks. He keeps on working, then when the finished pieces are draped on the form, he steps back to edit.

It looks too severe; not playful enough. Changmin wonders what Yunho would do. Not that Yunho would make something as elegant and sophisticated as this, but still. Colour, Changmin thinks; Yunho would make it pop with a splash of contrast colour. He finds some bright yellow fabric paint, dials it down with a dab of orange to push it more towards gold, and spatters it over the cuffs of the jacket.

The door opens and Zhou Mi comes back in. “Designers,” he says, “you have forty minutes to send your models to hair and makeup. Use the Gangnam Style accessory wall thoughtfully. So let’s go! I’m sending in your models!”

Everyone runs around grabbing shoes and bags and jewellery. Changmin decides that less is more and settles on a pair of gold high heels for his girl and a chunky necklace to accentuate the dramatic cut of the vest and jacket.

Finally they all hustle downstairs to the runway. It’s been a long day and they’re all drooping with tiredness, except Siwon, who claims that God has given him the gift of wakefulness, and Amber, who says Red Bull gave her a similar gift.

Jaejoong waddles onto the runway, wearing a purple leopard print jumpsuit with pink zebra print boots and clutching his artificial baby bump.

Over the last couple of seasons of _Stitched Up_ , Jaejoong has landed himself a glowering, hunky pop star with bulging muscles, a penchant for leather, and interesting facial scars that people have variously interpreted as ritual scarification, tribal markings, or just bad acne. Last seen in the charts in the early 1990s, Porpoise keeps on attempting comebacks but no one seems to care. Nevertheless, Jaejoong and Porpoise have been in a serious relationship for nineteen months, according to the gossip columns, and as a symbol of their love they’re in the process of adopting a baby from Malawi.

“Welcome to the runway!” Jaejoong chirrups. “This is the first ever _All Stars Stitched Up_ , and I’m excited to see what free gifts I can blag from our advertisers. Your challenge today was to create a look out of your nightwear and a bed sheet. I hope none of you did anything disgusting in your beds last night, otherwise I pity your poor models. Now let’s meet the judges! First, top Korean fashion designer Cho Kyuhyun...”

Kyuhyun grins. “Hi guys.”

Changmin scowls. He still hasn’t forgiven Kyuhyun for ripping off the banana jumper he’d made for his final runway collection in season five. It wasn’t his fault that Versace had poached him before he could return Kyuhyun’s phone calls. It certainly wasn’t very professional of Kyuhyun to put out a spring/summer collection of separates entirely designed around exotic fruit.

“Fashion director for _ClothesLine_ magazine, Madame Oh...”

“Hellooooo.” Madame Oh has ditched Vivienne Westwood in favour of Betsey Johnson, and is wearing a t-shirt with a skeleton screenprint over a bright yellow calf-length dress with tyre tracks up the middle of the skirt. Some things never change, though, and there’s still the heavy sickly-sweet stink of Oscar de la Renta wafting across the runway.

“And our guest judge this week is some actress who needs the exposure because her next TV show is sure to be a flop,” Jaejoong says, adding, “I’ve forgotten her name already so don’t bother listening to her critique. Let’s start the show!”

Even though Changmin knows he’s a winner, the old nerves return full force and he sits on his chair, arms crossed and one foot jigging up and down as he waits for his model to walk. He studies the other looks, disregarding most of them but turning to smile and praise Milhye, Han Geng, Spoon, Amber, and Lady HeeHee. Siwon’s look is also very cohesive and shows a definite point of view, but Changmin ignores him out of principle.

Changmin, Milhye, and Lady HeeHee are in the top three. Go Ara, Siwon, and Victoria are in the bottom three.

“I think this would look much nicer in chiffon,” Jaejoong says of Siwon’s look. “But since you only had cotton to work with, we’ll let you off this time. Also, we all appreciate the fact that you’re standing there in a really small pair of jockeys. I think we’ll use that image as part of our pre-season advertising campaign.”

Madame Oh leans forward, holding her scorecard up to shield her eyes from the glare of the runway lights. “Designer Shim, is that a Gwangju Skank t-shirt?”

“Yes,” Changmin says. “A one-of-a-kind garment, too.”

“Then I wonder that you dyed it and cut it up like that, regardless of the rules of this show. You could have used your underwear.”

Changmin blushes. “The underwear belongs to Yunho.”

Madame Oh nods in understanding and turns to the forgettable guest judge. “They’re so sweet together. Such a shame we couldn’t get Designer Jung back on the show, too. Top ratings would’ve been guaranteed, but instead we just had to settle for whoever we could get.”

“Let’s move onto Designer Go!” Jaejoong says loudly. “What is this repulsive outfit? It looks like a sack. I would not wear such a hideous garment.”

Kyuhyun grins. “It’s ugly, ugly, ugly!”

The decision is unanimous. Changmin wins, and Go Ara is sent home after Jaejoong sways over and gives her the air kisses, declaring, “Go Ara—go away.”

* * *

**iii. Tap This**

It’s challenge three, and they’re on their way to Bias Designer Fabrics when Spoon grabs at Changmin’s arm. “Girlfriend! Are my eyes deceiving me or is that your ass plastered all over a forty-foot billboard?”

Changmin jolts out of thoughts of circle skirts versus princess-cut dresses and stops on the street, allowing Spoon to swing him around in the correct direction.

The other designers are staring and pointing. Then they turn en masse and stare at Changmin’s bum before returning their gazes to the huge advertising hoarding on the other side of the road. Then they look back at him, as if they don’t quite believe that it’s his ass on display in those tight, tight jeans.

Changmin stares. His mouth drops open. Shock runs through him, hot then cold, and he gets a fuzzy feeling in his head and a tingling in his feet and he wants to kill Yunho, wants to kill him right now, that stupid bastard, because _just look what he’s done_.

The advert shows Changmin wearing a plain white dress shirt half tucked into a pair of faded blue jeans. Yunho had made those jeans for him. They’re cut snug and sexy, the denim pliant and comfortable. They’re the best pair of jeans Changmin has ever worn, and over the last few months he’s almost lived in them.

In the picture, Changmin is lying across their rumpled bed reading the Sunday newspaper supplements, one leg kicking in the air in a relaxed, flirtatious manner. His face isn’t fully visible; it’s just the back of his head, his hair tousled and sexy, and the side of his face, just enough that it’s obvious he’s smiling at the man seated in the leather armchair on the far side of the room. The man is out of focus, deliberately blurred to become suggestions of shape and colour, but Changmin—and everyone else who sees the advert—knows it’s Yunho.

Changmin draws in a breath. He remembers that day, the sunlight across the bed and the crumbs from the croissants they’d eaten for breakfast spilled over the sheets. He’d been engrossed in an article about the historic windmills of Mykonos when Yunho said _let me take photos of you, baby, you look so sexy_ , and Changmin—stupid, stupid—had agreed, and he’d rolled and stretched and posed for his—moronic, deserves to be dumped—boyfriend.

Later, Yunho had put the camera on the dresser and programmed it to take pictures of them sprawled across the duvet together, just looking at one another and smiling. Changmin knows there was a photograph of them kissing, because he really likes it and it’s tucked into the inside pocket of his suitcase for when he’s feeling lonely, but this... _This_ picture must’ve been taken right after without him even knowing, because he remembers Yunho picking up the main part of the newspaper and sitting in that chair, and Changmin remembers how he’d smiled at Yunho, happy and content and wanting him to come back to bed so they could make love.

Never mind that those jeans are really hot and his ass looks fantastic in them. Never mind that a filter has been applied across most of the image, sharpening over Changmin’s legs and bum and slightly fading everywhere else in order to focus the viewer’s attention on the jeans. Forget all that. The worst part, the absolute worst part, is the tag line.

 _Tap This_ , it says in huge bold letters—and oh God, _now_ Changmin understands why Yunho was so delighted when he sourced those cute little stainless steel rivets in the shape of old-fashioned taps.

 _Tap This_.

This is not happening. Except it is. In public. And the _Stitched Up_ cameraman is right there capturing his look of horror, and this will be edited every which way to get the full hilarious effect for broadcast on national television.

Jung Yunho is a dead man.

Spoon is dragging on his sleeve in a froth of excitement. “Oh my gawd, girlfriend, your honeypie sure loves you!”

Changmin is still trying to process the sight of the advert without the added complication of working out that ‘honeypie’ somehow equals ‘Yunho’.

“He’s not my honeypie,” Changmin snarls. “He’s—he’s a devious, underhand skank and I’m going to _kill him_.”

Instead of being impressed by Changmin’s flash of temper, Spoon giggles. “Darlin’, if I had an ass as cute as yours I’d get everyone to photograph it!”

This is unbearable. Changmin starts across the road with some half-baked notion of tearing down the billboard poster, although he has no idea how he’d actually manage to do such a thing. The situation is not improved by his fellow designers hooting and calling out supportive phrases such as “Mmm, yeah, work it, Designer Shim! Can’t bear to see you leave but I love watching you go!”

Changmin reaches the traffic island in the middle of the road just as a bus goes past with another _Tap This_ advert emblazoned along its side. This picture shows him bending over to fuss Pucci. Not that either the dog or Changmin is identifiable—like the photo on the billboard, the angles are so careful and discreet as to be anonymous, except for the fact that it’s immediately fucking obvious that it’s him.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Changmin turns around. The traffic lights have changed, and a taxi slows to a halt beside him. Of course it has a _Tap This_ advertising banner on its roof, a picture of Changmin leaning against the door of their balcony at sunset. Yunho is standing outside, his hair and part of his face visible in the shot. His head is tilted towards Changmin and his eyes shine with happiness, and he’s got one hand tucked into the back pocket of Changmin’s jeans.

It’s an intimate and loving picture, one that brings a lump to Changmin’s throat. He recalls that evening with perfect clarity. He’d just flown in from a five-week job in Milan. He was jetlagged before he’d even got off the plane. Chanel and Versace had just started their legal squabble over his services, and he was sick to death of the fashion world and just wanted to be held.

Of all the images to use, this one hurts the most. He also knows beyond any doubt that this is the image that will sell truckloads of those jeans.

“Oh,” he says, beyond flustered. “Oh, for fu—uh, fashion’s sake!”

The taxi moves on, and Changmin sprints back across the road to rejoin his fellow designers. They cluster around him, swooning and cooing. For some reason they all see the adverts as some kind of hugely romantic gesture of love and devotion rather than the gross invasion of privacy it so obviously is.

“Stop it,” Changmin snaps, his emotions too rattled for him to think straight. “Don’t talk about it anymore. This isn’t funny. This is—this is...”

“Flattering?” suggests Milhye.

Changmin scrunches a hand into the back of his hair. “He did this _on purpose_.”

“Duh, yeah.” Siwon taps the side of his head. “Can you blame him? The whole country knows you’re on this show. The producers told me they expect the ratings to be higher than the usual _Stitched Up_. Any businessman with sense is going to cash in on the opportunity.”

“You can’t blame a market trader for exploiting his best assets,” Amber says.

“Yeah, especially when his own assets in that department are kinda lacking,” Spoon adds.

Changmin is incoherent.

Zhou Mi has finally noticed that no one followed him to the fabric shop. Wandering back, he asks, “Designers, why are you all dawdling randomly on the pavement?” Then he notices the billboard. He stands there, puts one arm across his chest, rests his other elbow on his wrist and crooks his index finger against his lips as he studies the gigantic advert. “Oh, my. Is that you, Designer Shim? What a well-made pair of jeans. They fit so lovingly over your posterior. Did Yunho make those?”

Grinding his teeth, Changmin answers, “Yes.”

“Well, that’s marvellous. They’re just so adorable.” Zhou Mi tilts his head and looks down at Changmin’s ass. “Even if we don’t have cute bubble butts like you, the cut of those jeans would flatter any man’s behind. When you next talk to Yunho, tell him I’d like to order fourteen, and ask him if he can make a pair in red.”

Changmin stares at him.

“One thing, though.” Zhou Mi gestures at the billboard and grimaces a little. “The logo on the back pocket. A tap for _Tap This_. It’s too much. Tell him from me, it’s just too literal. Just a suggestion, take it or leave it.”

* * *

**iv. Some Day My Prints Will Come**

Zhou Mi wanders into the workroom one morning and asks the designers to gather round, then announces the print challenge.

Changmin cringes. He hates prints. He much prefers the clean simplicity of solid colour. Perhaps he’ll use a little ombré if he really wants to go wild, but generally he goes out of his way to avoid prints.

Today though, that isn’t going to happen. Today they’re supposed to be creating a print based on something meaningful from their past. Henry, a previous challenge winner from season six, comes to give them a motivational speech. Changmin recalls that Henry’s winning print involved red maple leaves against a white background. The maple leaves had badly drawn smiley faces and sported baseball caps, and the phrase YO WASS HAPPENIN DUDES was written underneath. Henry had made a pair of MC Hammer-style pants and teamed them with a black tank top bearing the slogan _I ♥ the 80s_ in case nobody had worked out the reference already.

To this day Changmin still hasn’t worked out why Henry won that challenge, but after watching seven seasons of _Stitched Up_ and ten seasons of _Project Runway_ , he’s come to terms with the fact that sometimes the judges have absolutely no taste and are in fact complete idiots.

Zhou Mi thanks Henry for his insight and then says that they’ll all be given dossiers of inspirational images from their past, and that someone special is going to deliver them. Changmin sits at his bench and hopes Yunho is his special someone. The workroom doors open and in come a succession of designers’ mothers. Changmin cranes his head, looking for Yunho’s bright, beaming sunshine face, but his hopes are dashed when his father’s secretary, Hanna, approaches him with an embarrassed smile.

“Here’s your dossier,” she says, handing it to him. “Your mother had a charity tennis match to attend and your father and sisters are in the middle of a board meeting. This is all they could find at such short notice.”

Right at that moment, Changmin overhears Spoon’s mother exclaiming that three weeks just hadn’t been long enough for her to get together all the pictures she’d wanted to include in his dossier.

Hanna looks even more embarrassed. Changmin’s eyes burn. He bites his lip and gestures for her to sit down.

“I can’t stay,” she says, glancing at the clock. “I need to get back to work.” She hesitates, twisting her hands together. “Good luck, Changmin. I hope you win.”

“Thanks,” he croaks. He watches her leave, escorted out by a puzzled Zhou Mi, and then he bows his head so his hair falls into his eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens the dossier.

It’s almost empty. There’s a photocopy of a picture of him in his graduate’s robes in Trafalgar Square. He looks annoyed and amused at the same time, and there’s a pigeon perched on his mortarboard. His university friends surround him, similarly attired, and they’re all laughing and joyful.

Underneath that picture is a snapshot of him at school. He has a bowl haircut that makes his ears stick out and he stares solemnly into the camera lens.

Finally there’s one of the original contact prints from the photo shoot he and Yunho had done for the Posh Boy line. They’re standing close together in an expensive boutique hotel, Yunho in a severe black suit with a white and blue diagonal-striped tie, Changmin much more casual, leaning on the back of a chair and wearing cream trousers and a striped shirt beneath a white-on-red grid-patterned blazer. They’re looking at one another, Yunho all haughty and Changmin just about to smile, and it’s immediately clear to anyone with eyes to see that they want to rip each other’s clothes off and have rampant sex on the floor.

For all the subtextual filth in that photo, it’s actually very classy. Changmin’s mother had admired it, so Yunho had presented it to her in an elegant silver frame. Changmin hadn’t seen it again until this moment, and he wonders where the frame went. Probably it’s housing a picture of his father’s latest acquisition, a hot springs complex somewhere on Shikoku.

He glances at Spoon’s overflowing dossier, at the way Amber is cuddled against her mother as they reminisce, at Milhye and her mum sitting side by side, talking quietly. Though neither of Siwon’s parents are here, his sister is with him, giggling as she flicks through his sketchbook.

Changmin lays his pathetic dossier to one side and gets up. He walks out of the workroom, aware of the cameraman scurrying after him. He stands in the corridor. Probably he should do something dramatic for the sake of the TV audience. He should run into the toilets crying or he should punch the wall, but in all honesty he doesn’t know what to do. All he knows is that he misses Yunho so much it hurts.

He even misses those stupid mutts that Yunho had insisted on bringing to live with them. Those mangy curs with their ridiculous names. Pucci should be the name of a small dog, not an enormous beast like the Leonberger. And Lagerfeld is a noble name, not something to be given to a squashed-face pug.

The thought of Yunho and the dogs makes him smile a little. The cameraman wheels around him, whispers, “Are you okay?”

Changmin nods. “I’m fine. Thank you. I’m... I’ll go back inside.”

He returns to the workroom. Milhye and Spoon look up, but he waves away their concern. Opening his sketchbook, he doodles random shapes before sliding over to the touch-screen computer upon which he’s supposed to unleash his creativity. He plays around with the colour wheel for a while, writes his name and Yunho’s name and draws flowers and hearts around them, and then dismisses the screen.

He has absolutely no inspiration.

Picking up the dossier again, he studies the three pictures. He supposes they all represent a moment of freedom, for all that they might seem to suggest the opposite. He’d enjoyed his time at school. He was clever and bright and the teachers paid attention to him. Going to St Martin’s had been a different kind of freedom. He’d thought he’d beaten his father and got his own way by going to fashion college on the other side of the world, and when he’d graduated he’d felt nervous and excited at the prospect of returning home.

And then there’s the picture with Yunho. Apart from that very slight suggestion of a smile on Changmin’s face, they both look buttoned-up and proper. No one would ever know that, at the end of the photo shoot, he and Yunho had almost totally trashed that hotel suite shagging like bunnies across every available surface.

Changmin sighs and puts his head down on his sketchbook. He closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep, the sound of conversation gentle around him.

He wakes with a start to the smell of damp paper. Eww, he’s drooled on his sketchpad. Changmin sits bolt upright, blinking, shaking off the memory of a horrible dream in which Siwon was eliminated from the show and decided to call around to visit Yunho, who allowed himself to be seduced by Siwon’s washboard abs and stupid chiffon outfits.

“It’s just a dream,” Changmin mutters to himself. He’d fallen asleep on his mechanical pencil and now he has a really unflattering line imprinted into his forehead. He pulls his fringe forwards to hide it, even though the mothers and Siwon’s sister have gone home and no one cares what he looks like, and then he glances at the clock and realises he has five minutes left to design his print and send it off to the fabric printers.

“Oh crap,” he breathes. “Oh, for fu—fashion’s sake.”

“Girl, I love your new catchphrase,” Spoon calls out.

“Fuuuu fashion fashion fashion,” Changmin squawks, scribbling his finger across the touch-screen in a panicked, random design. He duplicates the image to fill the available space and then presses _send_ before he can even do a test print on paper. Whatever happens tomorrow, he’ll just have to make it work. 

After a restless night spent worrying about exactly what kind of subliminal Rorschach test he’ll be sending down the runway, Changmin arrives at the workroom to find the print on his bench. The other designers are ecstatic about seeing their creations brought to life, but Changmin just stares at his, then shrugs and starts cutting out a cute, flirtatious summer dress. He has no idea if the design fits the aesthetic of the print, and frankly he doesn’t care.

The runway show is a confusion of interpretations. Jaejoong, Kyuhyun, Madame Oh, and guest judge Henry look baffled by everything that walks in front of them.

Siwon’s print is a violent mess of contradictory colours overlaid with weird animal shapes, flames, and obscure Biblical passages. He says his inspiration was the Book of Revelation. Kyuhyun says the only revelation he can see is in the use of chiffon to make a pair of dungarees. Amber has made what Madame Oh describes as ‘a prom dress tripping on acid’ from her print of boot prints and tyre tracks, which symbolises her childhood growing up as the only girl amongst a family of eleven guys. Milhye’s print features horses, and Spoon’s print is, surprisingly, of forks.

Then they get to Changmin’s look. There’s a long silence as they stare at the dress. They all tilt their heads sideways.

“It’s a pretty dress,” Jaejoong says, rubbing his fake pregnancy belly thoughtfully. “But what about the print? It’s somewhat odd. I guess if you squint a bit and lie on your side, it kind of looks like the Chinese character for ‘wind’.”

Kyuhyun snorts with laughter, then stops and resumes his serious judging face.

“Isn’t ‘wind’ a synonym for ‘crazy’?” Madame Oh asks.

Changmin has no idea how to explain his print. Maybe he should be honest and admit that he drew it at the last minute, but that would suggest he wasn’t taking the competition seriously. “Uh,” he says, groping for something, anything, to say. “I... This is... It represents...”

His mind has gone completely blank. Oh God, he’s going to lose this challenge. Maybe he should do what every other _Stitched Up_ designer does at one time or another and fake a crying fit on the runway.

Milhye steps forward. “What Changmin is trying to say is that this print reflects his home life over the last couple of years since he first appeared on _Stitched Up_.”

The judges all say ‘ahhh’ and nod in a sagacious manner.

“Um,” says Changmin. “Uh?”

“I see it now.” Madame Oh gestures at the dress, her bracelets jangling. “The lines, the vertical and the horizontals—it’s a house. Those lines represent a foundation and a wall and a roof.”

“Oh yes!” Jaejoong exclaims, leaning forward. “I see it, too. The foundation is not totally solid yet, you can see the wobbly bit there, but just look at the line of the roof—it’s almost as if it’s protecting the chaos inside.”

“Er,” Changmin says.

“It’s so simple, yet it tells such a story,” Kyuhyun enthuses. “You could read it either way. The chaos inside the house could represent Yunho, with Changmin being the floor and wall and roof, or you could spin it right around and say Changmin is the muddled blob in the middle of Yunho’s protective embrace. Really, it’s so romantic.”

“Yes,” Changmin says, humbled by this display of uninformed opinion. “That’s exactly right.”

* * *

**v. Conjugal Rights**

Halfway through the unconventional materials challenge—making couture from supplies purchased at a DIY store—one of the producers comes into the workroom to tell Changmin that it’s time for his video chat with Yunho.

Barring an emergency situation, the designers are only permitted one video chat with their loved ones during the filming of the show. Accustomed to being apart from Yunho for a good fifty percent of the time over the last two years when work took him overseas, Changmin had thought that three weeks without his boyfriend would be easy to bear.

Except it’s been unbearable. At least when he was abroad for work, he could call Yunho, hear him and see him and have lots of phone sex, and one time when he was in Milan for his birthday, Yunho had surprised him by turning up and whisking him away to Rome for a few days, where they’d stayed at a former convent with walls three feet thick and with eighteenth century stuccoed roses on the ceiling. The bed was huge and antique and piled high with the softest quilts, and Yunho had taken him to the Pantheon and kissed him beneath the glimmer of light from the oculus even though it was pouring with rain. 

Over the past couple of weeks, the other designers have come back from their video chats with red eyes and tear-stained cheeks, except for Siwon, who came back quoting from the Apocrypha. Changmin is determined not to get all sappy and emotional. He’s far too sophisticated and in control for such things, and besides, the cameraman will be lurking nearby.

He forces himself not to hurry from the workroom. Milhye asks him to send Yunho her love. Amber asks him to tell Yunho that she’s a big fan of Gwangju Skank clothes. Siwon also wants to send his love, but Changmin ignores that.

The cameraman follows him into the designer’s lounge. He weaves past the couches and the table towards the bench at the back of the room. A chair is placed in front of a touch-screen computer, and beside it is a box of tissues for the inevitable meltdown of designer sobbing.

The screen is in sleep mode. Changmin taps it— _Tap This_ , ugh—and Yunho comes into view. He’s sitting barefoot on the floor at the end of their bed, wearing a khaki shirt unbuttoned over a soft stone-coloured vest and streaked grey jeans. He’s had his hair cut, and now it’s dyed a warm brown with glimmers of red. It looks soft and touchable, and Changmin has to stop himself from reaching out.

Yunho’s face lights up when he sees Changmin. “Puppies, look, it’s Grumpy Daddy!”

Lagerfeld and Pucci appear in the screen. Pucci licks the tiny camera lens and starts barking with excitement. In the background, Changmin hears Lagerfeld yapping. Yunho scolds Pucci for being a bad puppy, and then he holds Lagerfeld up to the screen and the pug wags his tail so hard that he almost wriggles his way out of Yunho’s grasp.

“Jung! Have you been letting the dogs sleep on the bed?” Perhaps this isn’t the most romantic greeting, but it’s a valid and important question.

A shadow of guilt flicks through Yunho’s expression. “Maybe?”

“Oh my God.” Changmin covers his face with his hands. “I swear it should be you that goes to doggy training, not those mutts.”

This conversation is getting more romantic by the minute. Changmin hears the cameraman laugh and shift around behind him to get a better shot of the screen.

“They’re not mutts, they’re pedigrees.” Yunho cuddles Lagerfeld against his chest and hauls Pucci away from the computer. The Leonberger’s massive tail almost sweeps the laptop off the armchair or whatever it’s balanced upon. “Wait just a moment,” Yunho says, then to the dogs, “Come on, puppies, Happy Daddy will give you treats!”

“Just lock them in the kitchen,” Changmin shouts as Yunho and the dogs trail out of shot. “Don’t feed them treats for no reason or they’ll expect it all the time! Jung, are you listening? You’re feeding them between meals, aren’t you? I _told_ you—”

There’s nothing for a couple of minutes. Changmin looks carefully at the shot of their room. A chew-toy lies mostly destroyed beneath the bed. He must remember to remove it when he gets home, because Yunho probably won’t notice. Faintly he can hear barking and yapping and the murmur of Yunho’s voice, and then a door closes, and then another door.

Yunho comes back into shot, sitting himself down on the floor and smiling into the camera. “I’m back,” he says unnecessarily.

“I miss you.” The words blurt out. Changmin looks away, embarrassed that sappiness has managed to override his common sense. He’d written down a bunch of things he’d wanted to say, but he’d left the list in the workroom. He’d meant to complain about the whole _Tap This_ fiasco, and also he has an opinion about the recent revelation, let slip accidentally by Milhye, that the producers had actually asked Yunho to go on the show first, but Yunho had told them they shouldn’t be afraid of asking Changmin instead because obviously they should have asked Changmin first since he’s the better designer.

Changmin really wants to discuss these matters in a loud voice and with a hectoring tone, but now he can see Yunho, he doesn’t want to spoil the moment. He lets out a quivering breath and looks back at the screen.

Yunho’s expression has gone all soft. “I miss you, too. The puppies miss you.”

“Stop calling them puppies!”

Yunho smiles, says, “Oh, you’re so grumpy, Changminnie,” and then his smile intensifies, turns a little wicked. “Can I make you feel better?”

Changmin is hard in an instant. Embarrassed and squirmy, he hunches down. “Can’t. The cameraman...”

“Huh.” Yunho comes closer to the lens and tilts his head as if looking for the _Stitched Up_ cameraman. “Hey, Taejoon!” he calls out. “How’s your lovely daughter Sojeong? She must be running rings around you and your wife by now!”

The cameraman shuffles over, all smiles. Changmin glowers, conscious of the uncomfortable ache of desire and the slip of time passing. Of course Yunho would remember their cameraman’s name from two years ago. Of course he’d remember that Taejoon’s wife gave birth to their first child midway through the filming of season five.

They chat away like old friends for a few minutes, and then Taejoon says, “Great talking to you, Designer Jung. I’ll let you and Designer Shim have some quiet time now.” Giving Changmin a knowing grin and a wink, Taejoon and his camera leave the room.

Changmin has the designer’s lounge all to himself.

“Now,” Yunho purrs, “it’s just you and me.”

Excitement spikes. Changmin lets out a shuddery breath. “Are you suggesting...”

Yunho glances at the clock at the bottom right of the screen. “We have about ten minutes before our allotted chat time is up. D’you reckon you can make me come before then?”

Lust hazes Changmin’s vision. “Yes,” he says, his voice husky. “Yes. But wait. Don’t start without me.” He bolts out of the chair.

There’s no lock, so Changmin shoves every movable piece of furniture in front of the door before he makes his way back to the screen. He struts a little, one hand up to unfasten his tie, but Yunho shakes his head.

“Uh-huh, baby. Keep your suit on. You know how much I love you in a suit.”

Changmin sinks down onto the hard plastic chair, arousal thrumming inside him. “You mean...”

“Yeah.” Yunho shrugs out of his shirt and flings it aside. He’s breathing fast, eyes glittering, face flushed. “C’mon, posh boy. Tell me what I should lose next.”

“The vest.” Changmin sits forward on the chair, both feet planted flat on the floor to steady himself. He holds onto the edge of the bench with his left hand. For now, his right hand rests across his knee, even though he wants to cup his erection through his Armani suit and give himself a rub.

Yunho takes off his vest, managing to make it sexy despite the fact that he’s rushing because of the time constraints. Changmin feasts his gaze on the long, lean body exposed to his view, and he moans when Yunho strokes a hand across his chest, shuddering as he teases at his nipples.

“Wish you were here to do this, baby,” Yunho says, gazing straight into the camera. “I love your hands on me.”

“Unh.” In lieu of getting his hands all over Yunho’s sexy body, Changmin has to be content with touching himself. He sits back and unzips his trousers, frees his dick from his underwear.

“Oh, let me see.” Yunho crawls towards the screen, eyes wide. He sounds breathless. “Oh, your beautiful big cock. Look how hard you are. So wet and silky-luscious.” He licks his lips. “Taste it, baby, taste it for me.”

“Fuck, Yunho, don’t.” Changmin is blushing, trembling, but does it anyway. He strokes himself, runs his fingertips over the head of his cock, then lifts his hand to his mouth and dabs at the slick of pre-come with his tongue.

“God, I love you,” Yunho says, heartfelt and desperate.

Time is passing, going too fast. Changmin feels jittery. “Get your trousers off,” he snaps, squeezing the base of his dick to slow things down.

“Yes, sir!”

Changmin groans, watching as Yunho lies on the floor and performs one of his weird yoga moves, feet flat and his hips lifting, back arching. He yanks at the button and zipper, then pushes the jeans down over his thighs. He does it incrementally, and as soon as Changmin glimpses the dark patch of pubic hair, he starts to work his cock hard, gasping out, “Bad boy, Jung, going commando.”

“Somebody stole my underwear,” Yunho says, relaxing out of his arched pose and kicking off his jeans. He kneels up on the floor, completely naked and very aroused.

Changmin can barely concentrate. “You have more than one pair!”

“Yeah,” Yunho says, wrapping a hand around his lovely huge cock and giving it a nice long stroke, “but you took my favourite. And if I wear yours, you’ll only complain.”

“I won’t,” Changmin promises, tugging at himself faster and faster. “I really won’t. Wear some of mine. Please.”

Yunho starts jerking off in earnest. He licks his lips again, brow furrowing slightly in concentration as he stares at Changmin through the computer screen. “I don’t want to wear anything right now. God, you look so sexy, Changminnie. Your hair grows so fast. Look how long it is. Wish I could feel it over my skin, all silky and soft. I love it when you go down on me, when you do it really slow and your hair drags all the way down my chest and across my belly and then it _tickles_ , it tickles when you’re sucking me, and God, baby, it drives me wild.”

Changmin makes a few frantic, incoherent noises and grips his cock tighter, thrusts harder into his hand. The chair squeaks across the floor and he jams his feet down, holds onto the bench with everything he has and then tosses back his head, gasping for breath, sweat trickling and heat rising and rising. He can smell himself, clean and musky, and he misses Yunho’s scent, his cologne, the smell of his skin, the scent they make together.

“Oh God,” Changmin babbles, sensation cresting, orgasm building. “Oh God.”

“You want me, baby?”

“Yes.” Changmin closes his eyes, helpless with lust. He can’t watch any more, he can’t bear to see Yunho naked and desperate for him, jacking off because of him; he can’t bear being apart from him a second longer. Emotion chokes him and he gasps, crushed by the force of his need. “Yes, oh fuck, yes.”

“Tell me, baby, tell me what you are,” Yunho urges.

“Oh,” Changmin mews, flicking his damp hair from his eyes, fixing his gaze feverishly on Yunho, “I’m a winner, oh fuck, oh Yun, I’m a _winner_.”

Yunho comes so hard he shoots all the way up to his chin. It startles him, and he gives a strangled gasp-laugh that sounds so hot that Changmin goes over a second later, spreading his legs wide and aiming the thick, hot jets of seed at the wall and the floor, shaking with the force of his climax.

“Damn, baby, you came second,” Yunho says, drawing a hand down his chest and smearing his spunk across his body. “I really have to work on my control.”

“And I really wish I could lick you clean,” Changmin says, still panting for breath. “You look delicious, all sweaty and dirty like a proper little skank.”

Yunho laughs, his hair flopping into his eyes as he leans forward. “Whereas you still look like a gentleman, albeit a gentleman with his hand wrapped around his dick.”

“Yun,” Changmin begins, but then a pop-up appears on the screen— _10 seconds remaining_ —and he feels tongue-tied.

“I love you,” Yunho says, obviously having received the same message. He puts his hands up to the camera, his expression serious and warm. “I love you, Changminnie, I love you, I—”

The screen goes blank.

“I love you, too,” Changmin whispers. He leans forward, rests his head on the bench and blows out a long sigh, then puts himself to rights and cleans up with a handful of tissues.

A couple of minutes later, after rearranging the furniture, Changmin emerges from the designer’s lounge flushed but happy.

The producer sidles up to him, red-faced. “Designer Shim, er, how shall I say this... uh, your microphone pack was on the whole time you were, uh, while you were... _communicating_ with Mr Jung just now.”

Horror drenches Changmin. “What!”

“But don’t worry,” the producer continues, his smile the very definition of unconvincing, “we’ll edit it out!”

And that’s when Changmin knows that for the rest of his life, in every interview he gives and every TV show he goes on, he’s going to be haunted by the sound clip of himself sobbing _I’m a winner, I’m a winner_ in a desperate, frantic-to-come voice.

He is going to kill Yunho for this.

* * *

**vi. Hello, Ratings!**

In an effort to stretch out _All Stars Stitched Up_ for as long as possible, Jaejoong announces a pre-finale challenge for the final three.

“Designers,” he chirps, arms protectively around the fake baby bump that’s so huge now that Changmin wonders if he and Porpoise are expecting twins, “this is a very exciting challenge today. It’s a team challenge.” He puts a hand into the oversize coat he’s wearing and pulls out the velvet button bag.

“I bet you’re all wondering how it can be a team challenge when there’s only three of you. Well, you’re going to have a little bit of help from some familiar faces.” Jaejoong snaps his fingers, and three figures emerge from behind the backdrop.

Changmin squirms when Yunho strides onto the runway, mega-watt smile beaming out at everyone. Following him are Ryeowook from season three and Joohyun from season six.

“Welcome back!” Jaejoong says. “So, designers, you’ll be randomly paired up with these losers who refused to take part in the full show because they had better things to do, and each team will create a head to toe look for one of their rival designers. Let’s see what the button bag has in store for you.”

Changmin doesn’t want to be paired with Yunho. Except he does. But he doesn’t, because they wouldn’t get anything done. Except maybe he should rise to the challenge, embrace it, just to prove to himself that he can focus despite such a glorious, sexy distraction. Although he shouldn’t think of words like ‘rise’ and ‘embrace’. It leads his mind on the wrong path, and he almost misses it when Jaejoong says, “Milhye, you will be working with Yunho.”

Instead of feeling relieved, Changmin is annoyed. He tries not to show it, turning to Milhye and saying, “Good luck, you’ll need it.”

“Milhye and Yunho, you will be designing a look for...” Jaejoong scoops a name from the button bag and dramatic-pauses, “Changmin.”

“Oh fu—fashion,” Changmin says.

Jaejoong pulls out more names. Amber and Joohyun will design for Milhye, while Changmin and Ryeowook will design for Amber.

“To make things fair, you must all design menswear or womenswear that closely mimics menswear,” Jaejoong tells them. “We want to see fashion-forward trouser-suits or separates, but no dresses or skirts. I know we’ve had some strange individuals on the show who enjoy cross-dressing but I’m not one of them, and—”

Ryeowook casts a pointed look at Jaejoong. “That is such a blatant untruth. I’ve seen you out shopping in those pregnancy smocks.”

Jaejoong ignores him. “Zhou Mi will meet you in the workroom and I’ll see you on the runway!”

After the obligatory hugging and squealing as the three teams gather in the workroom, Changmin leads Yunho out into the corridor and spends five minutes of precious sketching time kissing him. It would have gone on for the full thirty minutes if Milhye hadn’t come out and tapped Changmin on the shoulder, enquiring when she could have her tailor back.

“He’s not a tailor,” Changmin says, stung.

“Today I am.” Yunho gives him another kiss. “I know all your measurements, but I think I’ll want to take them again later. Just to ensure a perfect fit.”

Ryeowook comes out to see what’s going on. “Designer Shim, this is a poor way to win a competition.”

“Technically I can’t win anyway,” Changmin says, “but that’s not an excuse not to do my best, so...”

“Changminnie, fighting!” Yunho calls as they head back into the workroom.

They have the rest of the day to create their looks. The time passes in a blur, a frenzy of cutting and sewing and pressing and unpicking and swearing and coffee and more sewing.

For Amber, Changmin designs a pair of low-waisted skinny trousers with narrow stripes of neoprene running the full length of the leg, and a structured, off the shoulder top of metallic pale blue fabric, plus a flirty little capelet.

Over on the other side of the room, Amber’s look for Milhye involves a print that resembles a picnic blanket. Ryeowook studies it and whispers to Changmin, “It’s _so_ Henry Holland, don’t you think? I’d have pegged Milhye as more of a John Rocha girl.”

Milhye has made a suit for Changmin that manages to be both hard and soft at the same time. Yunho is working on the fit of the jacket. “I’m sewing in love with every stitch!” he announces in a really loud and embarrassing voice, and Changmin cringes.

Finally it’s time for the runway. Even though this isn’t actually the finale, all of the previous contestants are seated to one side of the catwalk. Jaejoong, Kyuhyun, and Madame Oh look slightly more animated than usual.

Because the designers are also modelling this challenge, there’s a bit of confusion as they try to tidy their looks last minute. Milhye says that a button has fallen off Changmin’s suit jacket. Changmin is walking last, so he takes off the jacket and hands it to Yunho to fix while Milhye takes to the runway to open the show.

Then Amber walks. Changmin thinks she looks great. He’s studying his and Ryeowook’s work with a critical eye when Yunho slides the jacket onto him. “Good to go, baby,” Yunho says in his ear, and Changmin struts out along the runway.

He’s halfway down the catwalk when he realises there’s something spoiling the line of the jacket. When he passes the judges and does the stop-pose-turn for the cameras at the end of the runway, he lifts a hand and pats himself down. Yes, there’s definitely something stuffed into the jacket pocket. Probably the small pair of scissors he’d seen Yunho wielding earlier when he’d sewn the button back on. Regardless, it does make the jacket sit oddly. It’s unfortunate. Milhye will lose points for that. 

All three designers return to the runway with their assistants in tow, and the judges make their comments.

“This print,” Kyuhyun says of Amber’s design, “it’s so weird. I love it—but is it fashion-forward?”

“I have seen this before,” Jaejoong adds. “It looks very House of Holland to me.”

“Told you so,” Ryeowook mutters to no one in particular.

“I like this look,” Madame Oh says, gesturing with her scorecard at the outfit Changmin designed. “It’s chic and modern. I know this girl, what she’s doing, where she’s going. It’s very editorial. I like it a lot.”

“And what about Milhye’s look?” Jaejoong chirrups. “Changmin, do you like the suit Milhye and Yunho made for you?”

“It’s beautiful,” Changmin says honestly, “but I’m not sure it showed to best advantage, because there’s something in here,” he pats the jacket pocket, “that spoils the line.”

Exchanging a look with Yunho, Milhye says, “Why don’t you take it out and see what it is?”

“Um, okay.” Puzzled and slightly anxious because of the way the judges all lean forward, their gazes intent upon him, Changmin slips a hand into the pocket and brings out a tiny box. Not a square box, but narrow, almost flat, just big enough to contain...

“Oh God,” he says, a hideous, joyful suspicion sharpening. His hands are shaking as he pops the lid and reveals a simple, unadorned platinum ring.

The other contestants draw in their collective breaths. The judges look smug.

Yunho drops down onto one knee. “Changminnie,” he begins, looking nervous, “I know we can’t get married here but if we go to Spain or Iceland or somewhere like that, we _can_ get married and it’ll be legal and everything, and—and—Changmin, I’d be really honoured if... I mean, would you, could you... Oh, I really want to marry you. Will you marry me?”

Changmin flails.

“If he says no, I’m right here waiting!” Spoon calls out.

“No,” Changmin snaps, and then as Yunho’s hopeful expression dies a horrible death, Changmin waves his hands and shouts, “Yes. Yes! I was saying no to Spoon, no Spoon can’t have you because you’re mine, even though you’re an idiot and you should have asked me properly and not on a stupid TV show, and you’d better take me to Spain because I’ve always wanted to go there and we can wear sunflowers and lie on the beach and you can collect seashells for me and oh God, I love you but you are _such an idiot_.”

Yunho bounces up, his smile utterly dazzling. “Yes? You said yes?”

“Why do you sound so surprised, you stupid Gwangju skank! Ugh, oh my God, this is so embarrassing.” Changmin hides his face against Yunho’s neck.

“Oh, Changminnie. You said yes.” Yunho hugs him, tucks his head in close and whispers, “I love you, I love you.”

“Shut up,” Changmin snuffles. “I never wanted to cry on the runway. Oh, fashion.”

Zhou Mi meanders out onto the catwalk. “Designer Shim, Designer Jung, may I be amongst the first to congratulate you? And now let’s see the VTR of the moment Designer Jung asked Designer Shim’s father for permission to marry his son...”

Everyone turns to face the screen projected onto the _Stitched Up_ backdrop.

“What?” Changmin jerks his head up but doesn’t step out of Yunho’s embrace. “Oh no. You didn’t. Yun, you _didn’t_.”

“It was the right thing to do,” Yunho says calmly. “Watch.”

The video starts. A camera follows Yunho along a corridor to a door marked _Shim Dongsik, CEO, East Coast/West Coast Hotels_. Yunho knocks, looking excited and hopeful. He goes inside. The cameraman lingers in the hallway. A muffled conversation is audible from within, and then comes a roar of fury. The door is yanked open and Yunho runs out. A heavy paperweight arcs through the air after him and bounces off the wall. Yunho flees down the corridor.

Changmin stares at the screen in horror. “My father really did that?”

Yunho nuzzles against Changmin. “Don’t worry, I managed to convince him.”

On the VTR, Yunho comes back into shot. This time the cameraman follows him into the office. Yunho prostrates himself, begging for Changmin’s hand. Changmin’s father looks very stern, and then he starts to crack up until he’s laughing too hard to continue the charade. He helps Yunho to his feet and gives him a manly slap on the back, and then they both face the camera and grin and do stupid thumbs up and victory signs.

Changmin can’t believe what he’s seeing. “This is,” he says, completely without the words to describe it, “this is...”

“All massively contrived?” Kyuhyun suggests with a grin. “Of course it is. Shim Changmin, you’ve been stitched up!”


End file.
